What properties of water make it the universal solvent?

The term "universal solvent" suggests that water can dissolve anything. Since I'm currently sitting at my desk with a bottle of water next to me, clearly this is not the case.

However, water is a pretty good solvent, and dissolves lots of stuff. The secret to its solvation abilities is its high polarity. As you may or may not have seen in the past, solvents tend to dissolve solutes that have similar polarities. Because water is extremely polar and many solutes are polar (biomolecules and ionic compounds among them), water is great at dissolving lots of stuff.

For more information about the "like dissolves like" concept which describes the way that water is good at dissolving polar solutes, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility.

OK.